She stands in front of the sink with her back against my chest. She laughs when I first tell her to get her toothbrush. I laugh too, although I try to keep a lid on it. We are grinning at one another in the water-speckled mirror. The toothbrushes stand like breadsticks in a Hello Kitty mug on the shelf at its base. She reaches out and takes hers – white and mint green plastic, the bristles a little frayed and flared. Hands it to me over her shoulder.
“Toothpaste?” I say.
She fetches it. An almost-empty tube, compressed into a tight roll at one end. We are making eye contact in the mirror, she and I. She is, quite reasonably, trying not to grin. When I told her I was going to brush her teeth for her she burst out laughing. “You’re not serious?” she said, which of course lead to my insistence that I *was* serious, which of course lead to here.
I turn the tap on to a trickle, reaching around her body to do so. She is in pyjamas, I in my underwear. We were getting ready for bed a few minutes ago. I squeeze a pea-sized quantity of paste onto the brush, wet it, and raise it to her mouth. I don’t need to tell her to open wide.